Northridge Middle School

Proud to be a Raider

November 26, 2024
Carnival

What is Ability Day?

On Friday, November 15th, NMS hosted another successful Ability Day! Ability Day started close to 10 years ago in an effort to help students with and without disabilities to better understand one another through collaboration. This is a school wide event where 6th and 7th grade students complete activities leading up to the carnival and panel in 8th grade.

Our 6th grade students spent time learning about deaf/hard of hearing, blind/low vision and physical impairments and participated in activities and simulations to better understand these disabilities. Our 7th grade students spent time learning about deaf/hard of hearing, sensory and learning disabilities and also participated in activities and simulations to better understand these specific disabilities.

Our 8th grade students spent time with students from local life skills and mixed ability classes in a carnival setting where they could spend time at different stations such as: bounce house, photo booth, video games, puzzles and books, basketball, scooters, kitchen, ball pit and water beads. Our 8th grade students then spent time listening to a panel of parents of children with a variety of abilities. Here they learned about first hand experiences and were able to gain insight into the personal life of someone with a disability.

A huge thank you to local schools for participating in this event again, for our panel of parents and for all of our staff members who helped make the day a meaningful experience for kids!

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8th Grade Student Reflections

"So this experience made me want to change the way I act toward people. It made me be patient and I want to be like that more. It also made me be more kind and I would like to be that way more."

"I learned from my partner's personality that she’s really nice and will put people before herself. Spending time with her helped me see that we actually had a lot in common with the things we like. She always wanted me to pick what we did and she was very sweet and funny."

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"As I was listening to the guest speakers, I gained a bigger perspective on how people may spend their life. Something that stood out to me was how much I didn’t realize what people may go through. Like having to do so many surgeries or having to do medication all throughout their lives. I also realized how brave some kids are to keep going and keep achieving their goals. Even with the scary moments they have to go through."

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"Today, I learned that there is so much more to people than meets the eye. How you should interact with people who have different needs than you is to treat them like you would treat any other person. What I would carry forward with me is to not judge a book by its cover."

"I think after hearing from the speakers and seeing kids during ability day, I will see people with different needs or abilities differently. I learned that those people do way more than what you would think. They go through so much stuff like medical trauma and people making fun of them. I would like to remember that while there might be some things they can't do, they can do amazing thing that people without disabilities can't do."

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"Discussing different disabilities with the panels allowed me to understand that other people’s differences are not describing who they are, but what they’ve been through. It encouraged me to see disabled people differently than how I saw them before. This is because I’ve never really thought about how life might be for disabled people compared to mine."

"This helped me view the differences in everyone by seeing the ranges of personality everyone has. I saw many kids who could be very active and then some were very shy. That was very cool to see and how we are all our own person. These differences show how it's meaningful because everyone has preferences and just because you might look different, it doesn’t mean it should change who they are."